1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electron beam (EB) exposure technique, and particularly to an EB exposure method, a hot spot detecting apparatus, a semiconductor device manufacturing method, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
In electron beam (EB) exposure, when EB is irradiated to a resist on a substrate, electrons expose the resist while scattering in the resist. Thereafter, the electrons collide with a substrate. The electrons having collided with the substrate are reflected due to elastic scattering. This reflection is referred to as “backward scattering”, and the reflected electron is referred to as “backward scattering electron”. Due to the backward scattering electrons, a region around an area of the resist irradiated with EB is also exposed. As a result, depending on the peripheral pattern area density, a fluctuation occurs with accumulated energy in the resist. The fluctuation of this accumulated energy may cause a fluctuation of dimensions of a resist pattern after developing and a fluctuation in finish dimensions of a pattern of a thin film layer (drawing layer) processed using the resist pattern as a mask. Thereafter, a phenomenon due to the backward scattering electrons is referred to as proximity effect. The correction for correcting an influence of proximity effect has been discussed.
It is necessary to carry out the proximity correction in consideration of a structure of an underlying layer that exists under a drawing layer as well as a structure of the drawing layer due to an effect of downsizing (Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2004-31836). However, the proximity correction considering the structure of the underlying layer requires a tremendously large amount of time and effort.